Thoughts on "The Chinese Internet is collapsing faster" Translation
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The content was translated from the Chinese version by Generative AI. Please double-check the content.
A couple of days ago, the WeChat Official Account [He Jiayan] published an article titled The Chinese Internet is Accelerating Its Collapse, which went viral overnight on the Chinese internet and then disappeared overnight.
I learned about this article from Twitter after it was deleted, and after reading the archived original text on Archive Today, I thought the author really struck a chord with me. I have reprinted the original text on my blog; you can read it here.
Before starting, I want to criticize one point of the original text. I consider myself relatively familiar with internet trends, but the data provided in the original text surprised me. I always thought that the content of websites operated by some major companies from ten or twenty years ago should still exist. Facts have confirmed my thought. Below are the results I obtained on May 25, 2024, by searching the keyword "马云 (Jack Ma)" on Baidu, Bing (non-Chinese version), and Google, with the time limited to January 1, 2000, to January 1, 2006.
Among them, Google, which displays the number of results, claimed to have found 4,760 results. It is clear that the situation is not as dire as described by the original author. Whether the original author was insufficiently careful in testing during writing or for marketing purposes, we do not know. To control variables, I also checked the specific times of the search results, and the vast majority of Bing and Google's search results were also within the time range selected by the original author for testing.
However, the argument presented by the original author is not incorrect at all.
Obviously, in the search results, there is almost only data from Sina.com and some larger media outlets; other content is missing. Given the media's long-standing penchant for citing each other, the truly meaningful information among these 4,760 results is probably around 47.6.
This is already terrifying enough.
As for the reasons for this phenomenon, I largely agree with the original author's views and will not elaborate here. But I want to add that in the land we live in, the disappearance of websites due to regulatory reasons is particularly severe.
Remember Tianya Forum? Although by the time my peers and I became part of the internet, this website had faded from public view, we were witnesses to its shutdown and closure. I recall that initially, the website announced it would stop registration and posting while retaining the function of reading past content, but soon after, it chose to shut down completely.
Why? I once read a sentence: "No new content needs to be reviewed, but old content needs new reviews".
If I remember correctly, this sentence should have come from a user's answer under a Tianya-related question on Zhihu, but I couldn't find that answer just now. Maybe this answer has disappeared like the official account article discussed in this article, or perhaps it's still somewhere on the internet but difficult to find again.
If you are an old internet user and remember the openness of the Chinese internet about a decade ago when Google was still operating in China, then I believe you can definitely understand the meaning of this sentence; even if not, you just need to think about whether many recent events have become taboo topics, and I believe it won't be hard to realize.
One point the original author did not mention is that before disappearing, content faces great difficulty in truly entering the Chinese internet.
First, there is China's domain name filing policy. This article will not discuss the rationality of filing—a topic whose answer is self-evident but meaningless—only its consequences: fewer people are willing to build a website. Once, my own website went through ICP filing to use domestic servers, but after more than two years of normal use, I was called by the cyber police and required to undergo public security filing. In the end, I had to cancel all filings, making my website "illegal" to access within China.
On the other hand, after Google's departure, Baidu Search's dominance further worsened the situation. When personal blogs had not completely disappeared, an outrageous phenomenon occurred on Baidu Search: someone painstakingly wrote an article on their website, but after publishing, a user on a major blog site (such as CSDN) copied the original text without attribution and posted it. At this time, due to factors such as the high search weight and review security that major websites purchase from Baidu, the plagiarized article would rank higher in search results, while the original text might not even be indexed.
In fact, apart from some overseas large companies, Baidu's search results now rarely include websites that have not completed ICP and public security filings. In other words, your creation may become part of the Chinese internet, but its contribution to the Chinese internet is zero. Now, Bing China is taking over an increasing share of the search engine market, and the above-mentioned harsh situation has improved somewhat, but it is already too late to change the Chinese internet.
You might say, "I wouldn't build my own website anyway; using platforms like Zhihu or Douyin is more convenient." However, the truth is that these platforms on the Chinese internet are also seriously backward.
One reason is the ubiquitous censorship, which every Chinese person is deeply familiar with, so I won't elaborate.
Second is the ownership and durability of data. Here are some simple facts: WeChat accounts registered with overseas phone numbers support exporting Moments to local files; most overseas chat apps support exporting chat history to text; Twitter, Facebook, etc., allow easy export of all posts and comments one has made. In contrast, none of these features exist in domestic apps. The only tool I've seen that offers chat history export was MiTalk, which ceased service in 2021. The problem is that there are currently no consistently active websites on the Chinese internet; even Baidu Tieba, which once dominated the market, has seen a sharp decline in users. Who knows what will happen to platforms like Douyin and Zhihu in the next decade?
Furthermore, there is the inexplicable behavior of forcing users to download apps before accessing content on the Chinese internet. Twitter still has a better experience when accessed via mobile browser than its client; on platforms like CSDN, I need to enable desktop mode in the browser to counter frequent pop-ups urging app downloads; Zhihu even forces redirection by reading the list of installed apps through the browser; Douyin supported browser access only long after its launch; Xiaohongshu still has no web version... Such behavior inherently hinders the free spread of internet content. First, it is hard to be found by search engines; second, in such cases, the range of articles I want to read is limited to platforms I am familiar with, significantly reducing potential readers.
I also want to comment on the view that "Web3 can solve this problem." I thought of writing this section after seeing another article commenting on that official account article, titled The Collapse of the Chinese Internet: Only One Solution Left (according to searched information, the original author is Chen Gen, but I could not find the original link posted by the author in search engines, so no source is provided here). Let's first look at the author's view:
But in fact, the root cause of this problem is that the internet era we live in, namely the Web 2.0 era, is centralized. In the centralized internet model, our lives are almost controlled by centralized platforms or relevant departments. Originally, the internet was characterized by the democratization of information, where everyone could freely produce and share content. But centralization means we do not own the content we produce; in fact, the content we produce may even constrain us.
For centralized platforms or websites, retaining information—or "remembering" for us—is not their obligation; what platforms care about is the data generated by our internet activities—which is truly commercially valuable to them. ... In other words, although I created this article, under the platform's centralized model, the platform profits from this data, while I, as the creator, do not directly benefit from it.
Of course, there is a solution to this problem. In fact, the birth of Web 3.0 is precisely to solve this chronic illness of Web 2.0. The true core of Web 3.0 lies in the sovereignty of personal data in the digital age. ... Building an internet open to all users, in Web 3.0, users are given greater control and can own and manage their digital identities and data. Even this digital identity and power belong entirely to the individual and can freely participate in various network activities in the Web 3.0 era, with platforms having no control at all. This stands in stark contrast to the current centralized platform model, which typically achieves monopoly by controlling large amounts of user data and depriving users of data rights, thereby reaping excess returns. The concept of Web 3.0 aims to break this monopoly, allowing users to benefit more directly from their own data, which is completely different from traditional business profit models.
In a sense, this is also the only solution to the collapse of the Chinese internet—using technological development to solve the limitations of technology and bring福祉 to human civilization, which is precisely the law and significance of technological development.
(In fact, the author's definition of Web 3.0 is somewhat one-sided, but since this is not the core of this article, no correction will be made here.)
The last sentence in the quoted section is certainly correct, but this idea is rather idealistic.
In fact, the original intention of the internet was simple: to simplify the transmission of information and improve efficiency. Instead, we should ask ourselves: Who told us that the internet is an excellent haven for storing information?
Perhaps this idea is fundamentally wrong.
Even though storage devices are developing rapidly and data storage costs are decreasing, the day when a single person can store the entire internet's content remains distant—even more so. So, even if we usher in a decentralized internet where everyone is an operator, what then?
For now, even in Web 4.0, 5.0, 6.0..., the global internet will still rely on those precarious submarine optical cables. Even a large country like China must route internet traffic out of the country through one of three internet gateways in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou. An ordinary underwater operation could accidentally damage a cable, not to mention factors like war or political needs. Maybe you want to talk about Starlink, but then we return to a centralized world.
Over a year ago, I developed a privately deployable web archiving tool: Web Archive Api. If there is no better way, everyone striving to preserve their own internet memories is the best way in this era.
Finally, hopefully, this article will not disappear from the Chinese internet.